Simple HTTP Server Alternatives

nginx [engine x] is a HTTP and reverse proxy server, as well as a mail proxy server written by Igor Sysoev. It has been running for more than five years on many heavily loaded Russian sites including Rambler (RamblerMedia.com).

Apache, is a web server notable for playing a key role in the initial growth of the World Wide Web and in 2009 became the first web server to surpass the 100 million web site milestone.

lighttpd (pronounced "lighty") is a web server designed to be secure, fast, standards-compliant, and flexible while being optimized for speed-critical environments.

LiteSpeed Web Server (LSWS) is a high-performance Apache drop-in replacement. LSWS is the 4th most popular web server on the internet and the #1 commercial web server. Upgrading your web server to LiteSpeed Web Server will improve your performance and lower operating costs

A small fast HTTP library and server that runs Rails, Camping, Nitro and Iowa apps.

Weborf is a lightweight webserver designed to rapidly share directories. Runs on POSIX systems.

Cherokee is a flexible, very fast, lightweight Web server. It is implemented entirely in C, and has no dependencies beyond a standard C library. It is embeddable and extensible with plug-ins.

Tornado is an open source version of the scalable, non-blocking web server. The framework is distinct from most mainstream web server frameworks (and certainly most Python frameworks) because it is non-blocking and reasonably fast.

Serve a single directory over HTTP.

webfs is a simple HTTP server for mostly static content. You can use it to serve the content of a FTP server via HTTP for example. It is also nice to export some files the quick way by starting a HTTP server in a few seconds, without editing some config file first.